The military authorities in Guinea must release Sekou Jamal Pendessa, Secretary General of the Syndicat des Professionnels de la Presse de Guinée (SPPG), and take steps to end the wave of repression against the media in the country.

Pendessa was arrested in town on January 19, 2024 and driven to the gendarmerie investigation brigade in Kipé, where he spent his first night in detention. After a lengthy preliminary examination, the High Court in Dixin charged him with unauthorised demonstration and publication of data likely to undermine public order and security. He has since been in Conakry’s central prison.

The charges against Pendessa stem from his call to demonstrate against the government for serial violation of public and individual freedoms, including press freedom and access to information. On January 18, 2024, the journalist and union leader launched a call to take to the streets to demand the lifting of restrictions on Internet access and the restoration of the country’s suspended private radio and television stations. Nine journalists were arrested by security forces who also laid siege on the Maison de la Presse (the social and office complex of media organisations) to scuttle the coordination of the planned protest.

Salifou Béavogui, the lawyer defending the trade unionist journalist, said: “These are offences that have been brought against him and that he has not admitted. This is a freedom that has just been confiscated because he should not have been taken to prison.”

The Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Charles Alphonses Wright, however insists that Pendessa has a case to answer for promoting lawlessness.

“Respect for justice is non-negotiable. But for those who don’t know, no one has a monopoly on disorder in a state, whatever profession they practice. No one can claim to exert pressure on the justice system to do what you think should be done. So it will be the magistrates who decide what they consider to be in accordance with the law”, the Minister told journalists at the Dixin courthouse.

The battle that Pendessa and his colleagues are waging for the full enjoyment of freedom of expression and press freedom is not an easy one, given the difficult context in which the media operate in Guinea.

Internet access has been severely restricted in the country for several weeks. The authorities have also imposed restrictions on social networks, while private radio and television stations have been cut off. News websites have also been targeted and have become inaccessible, except via virtual private networks. The authorities also banned all demonstrations in 2022 and warned against any repeat attempts.

These are the repressive measures against which the SPPG had called on its members and the public to protest on January 18, leading to the arrest of nine journalists, followed by the Secretary General of the journalists’ union.

Meanwhile, Guinea’s national trade union congress (CNTG) has called an emergency general meeting for January 24, to decide on the appropriate response, according to Abdoulaye Cisse, Director of Communication of SPPG who spoke on a messaging App with the MFWA.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) strongly condemns the detention of Sekou Jamal Pendessa and urges that he be released. We further urge the junta in Guinea to end the recent blitz of repression against the media. Peaceful demonstrations, even if unauthorized, should not be criminalised in any country which claims to uphold fundamental human rights.

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Guinean authorities should immediately end broadcasting blocks on at least four radio and television outlets and restore access to all social media and online communication platforms, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Friday.

On December 6, the High Authority of Communication (HAC), Guinea’s media regulator, ordered Canal+, a French distributor in Guinea, to suspend radio and TV content by privately owned broadcaster Djoma, according to a copy of the order shared with CPJ by Kalil Oularé, manager of the Djoma Média press group, and news reports.

Three days later, on December 9, the regulator ordered Canal+ to suspend radio and TV content by two other privately owned broadcasters, Evasion and Espace, according to Nfaly Guilavogui, Evasion deputy managing director, who spoke to CPJ, and a press release by Canal+. The regulator’s December 9 order cited “security imperatives” following a referral from “competent state services,” but did not elaborate.

Then, on December 12, Chinese television distributor StarTimes removed Djoma, Espace, and Evasion from its offerings “by decision of the competent authorities for reasons of national security,” according to StarTime’s press release on the matter and Guilavogui. The press release did not state which authority made the decision.

The formal suspension orders occurred after radio broadcasts of Espace, Evasion, Djoma, and privately owned Fim were already blocked. These broadcasts have been blocked since November 24, according to Djoma news director Aboubacar Condé, Fim editor Sekou Bah, and Guilavogui.

“Guinean authorities must immediately allow broadcasts by Fim, Espace, Evasion, and Djoma to return on air though all available channels, and restore access to all social media and online communication networks in the country,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, in Nairobi. “The blocks placed on radio, TV, and online media across Guinea directly threaten freedom of expression and the public’s right to access information.”

Bah and Oularé told CPJ that they could not point to specific reports that might have triggered the blocks and suspensions, but they believed their generally critical coverage of authorities played a role. “This is a programmed extinction of a medium known for its editorial line” and its critical coverage, including of injustices and human rights violations, Bah said.

Earlier in November, Fim’s radio broadcast was blocked when it was covering an incident in which four former military officials on trial for allegedly suppressing a 2009 demonstration escaped from prison. Espace, Evasion, and Djoma also covered the escape.

“The major event that [they covered which] could have a link with their blocking is the prison break, but the root of the problem is that these media, which have the largest audience in the country, are being blamed for their [critical] editorial line,” Sekou Jamal Pendessa, secretary general of the Syndicate of Press Professionals of Guinea (SPPG), a local trade group, told CPJ. Guilavogui told CPJ that Evasion’s TV programming is accessible via satellite, but that the vast majority of its audience relies on distribution by Canal+.

In addition to the broadcaster blocks, access to several online social media and communication platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Twitter, has been blocked in Guinea since November 24, according to analysis by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), a non-profit internet censorship tracker. Guilavogui and Nouhou Baldé, director of privately owned news site Guinée Matin, also confirmed the blocks, with Baldé telling CPJ that he was only able to access the platforms via a virtual private network.

Baldé told CPJ that the social media blocks hindered readers’ access to the news. “We distribute all the content on social networks and if internet users do not have access to it, this means that our articles are currently read very little,” Baldé told CPJ.

In a separate incident, on December 11, Guinea’s Post and Telecommunications Agency, which manages radio frequencies in the country, issued a decision to close Ndimba Radio within three months over its alleged failure to pay license fees, which its director Ibrahima Sory Traoré denies, according to news reports.

Traoré told CPJ the closure was retribution for “the media’s non-complacent coverage of the government.”

Moussa Moïse Sylla, director of communications for the Guinean presidency, declined CPJ’s request for comment, stating he was not authorized to speak on the matter.

CPJ called HAC President Boubacar Yacine Diallo, government spokesman Ousmane Gaoual Diallo, and Guinea’s Post and Telecommunications Agency, but received no response.

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The Syndicat des Professionnels de la Presse de Guinée (SPPG), and other Guinean media associations have declared a press-free day in response to what they say is a climate of repression that the ruling junta is foisting on the media.

As part of the protest, television screens and news websites will display the message “press in danger,” while radio stations will observe a symbolic silence, commencing at 5 am today, December 11, 2023. The press-free day aims to bring attention to the deteriorating state of press freedom in Guinea.

The SPPG announced the protest through social media, urging a united response to the challenges faced by the Guinean press, adding that the journalism profession in Guinea is being threatened with extinction.

“The danger is that out there does not threaten just one side – our freedom and our jobs are under threat. The bosses of media companies are also under threat. It’s a fight for survival, a fight for honour, we’re going to save our honour, we’re going to restore dignity,” said Sékou Jamal Pendessa, the Secretary General of the SPPG.

The junta has in recent times cranked up its repressive machinery against the media. The last straw was a December 9, 2023, order from the media regulator, Haute Autorité de la Communication (HAC), for the pay-TV broadcaster Canal+, to suspend channels like Espace FM, Espace TV, Evasion FM, and Evasion TV, citing “national security” reasons. This decision follows a similar action against Djoma radio and television on December 6, 2023.

The government claims that these measures are not intended to muzzle the press but to address issues such as “the promotion of communal hatred, the escalation of social and political tensions, and the propagation of divisive discourse.”

The HAAC says it took this decision following a referral from the relevant government departments on issues of national security, which led to the holding of an extraordinary plenary session.

According to some local media, the channels withdrawn from Canal+ are among the most closely followed. For Espace TV, its “offenses” may not be unconnected to the hosting of Cellou Dalein Diallo, President of the IFDG, one of Guinea’s biggest political parties, on its platform on December 6.

The latest measure is deepening public suspicions that the government is targeting the affected media organisations, which are all victims in ongoing restriction of signals. Since late November, these same media organisations and their channels – Espace TV, Evasion TV, Evasion FM and Djoma FM – have been jammed, along with FIM FM. Social media has also been restricted in Guinea, with WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok accessible in the country only via virtual private networks (VPN).

The media in Guinea has also witnessed a series of repressive measures. On September 1, 2023, (four days to the second anniversary of the 2021 coup), access to the Inquisiteur.net was restricted in the country, in what the management of the news website consider an attack by the government. Another critical news website, Guineematin.com, has, since August 15, 2023, been inaccessible except via VPNs.

In another brutal show of force, security agents attacked and arrested a dozen journalists on October 16, for defying the junta’s ban on public marches. The journalists were protesting the restriction of direct access to the news website Guineematin.com.

In a recent press release, the SPPG and other press associations referred to key figures in the current military government, including Prime Minister Bernard Goumou and government spokesman Ousmane Gaoual Diallo, as “enemies of the press”.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) strongly condemns the suspension of Espace FM, Espace TV, Evasion FM, and Evasion TV from the Canal+ network and calls on the government to reverse its decision. We also call on the HAC to stand firm for press freedom rather than capitulate to pressure from the authorities and abet their repression of critical media organisations. The Guinean authorities must engage the media as a key partner in the transitional process rather than as an enemies to be suppressed.

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In Guinea, several independent radio stations are being jammed and social media cannot be accessed without a VPN, says Reporters Without Borders (RSF), calling on the authorities to shed light on these serious media freedom violations and do what is needed to end them.

“You hear what sounds like wind or sometimes music dedicated to the army, glorifying national pride,” a listener said. The programmes of news radio station FIM FM have been jammed since the evening of 24 November. It has been the same with the news and entertainment radio station Djoma FM since 27 November, Espace FM since 29 November and Evasion since 30 November.

The platforms of Meta (WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook and Instagram) and ByteDance (TikTok) have been blocked in Guinea since 24 November and can now only be accessed by means of a VPN.

The authorities have so far said nothing about this. RSF has tried to contact government spokesman Ousmane Gaoual Diallo, who is also minister of telecommunications, but he has not responded to messages. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Guinean journalist deplored “the government’s deaf ear and tight lips in response to a situation that is having a dangerous impact on freedom of expression.”

“The jamming of independent radio stations and inaccessibility of social media are reminders of how fragile press freedom is in Guinea. The public is being denied its right of access to diverse news and information. Jamming radios looks alarmingly like an act of sabotage designed to silence them, and sends an extremely worrying signal. The authorities must say something, and must do whatever is needed to remedy this situation as quickly as possible.”

Sadibou Marong, Director of RSF’s sub-Saharan Africa bureau

Deliberately jammed

Aboubacar Camara, who heads the Guinean Union of Free Radio and TV Stations (URTELGUI), told RSF that these radio frequencies have no internal technical problems and that he therefore believes they are being deliberately jammed.

“We have carried out checks,” he said. “If you shift the frequency, the signal gets through, you can receive the radio station. So, it’s the radio frequency itself that is being targeted.” To jam a frequency, he said you just need to “have transmitters of greater capacity than those possessed by the radio station, set them onto the desired frequency, and transmit what you want in their stead.”

Camara thinks the Post and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (ARPT), Guinea’s telecommunications regulator, has such equipment and that it may be the cause of this interference. FIM FM director Talibé Barry agrees. “We are convinced that the ARPT’s silence is a sign of guilt.” When questioned on 27 November, Guinea’s High Authority for Communication (HAC) said it had “no additional information” and that it would investigate.

The jamming of FIM FM and Djoma FM began a few days after they covered the dismissal and arrest of public health minister Mamadou Phété Diallo for corruption and embezzling public funds. The jamming of Espace FM and Evasion began after they covered the jamming of the other two radio stations.

Frequent intermittent jamming

Guinea’s privately-owned radio stations are often jammed, especially since last May, when the country experienced a series of press freedom violations that had been without precedent since the military seized power in September 2021. Espace FM was jammed in mid-broadcast three weeks ago, as was Radio Baobab, a radio station based in Kankan that remained blocked for nearly two weeks.

FIM FM, which broadcasts in Conakry, the capital, and a few surrounding towns, is the radio station that experiences the most cuts. Its director says it has been the target of “at least five jamming operations” since May. “Sometimes, after announcing the name of a guest on our flagship show ‘Mirador,’ the signal is jammed as soon as they speak and it can last the whole day,” he said.

Camara says the blockages often occur when the show addresses “hot issues” and that they are “systematic, and can last an hour, a day, or even two.”FIM FM was previously jammed at the beginning of November, when a commando attacked Conakry’s main prison in a briefly successful attempt to free the head of a previous military junta, Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara.

Meanwhile, for the past year or so, the authorities have been denying FIM FM’s requests for permission to install ten transmitters in other parts of the countries to relay its signal, which is broadcast from Conakry. No reason has been given for the refusal.

On 27 November, FIM FM’s management announced that it was suspending its programmes – which could still be accessed on digital platforms with the help of a VPN – because of the jamming of its frequency.

Decline in press freedom

RSF has been voicing concern about the repeated attacks on press freedom in Guinea. The blocking of social media and privately-owned radio stations in May has been followed by other violations. They include the arrest in October of ten journalists covering a protest in defence of press freedom and against the two-month-old blocking of the Guinée Matin news website. Several of them were roughed up and all were held for several hours, until they were brought before a court in the Conakry district of Kaloum and charged with participating in an illegal demonstration.

No explanation was given for the blocking of the Guinée Matin website from mid-August until 5 November. Access to another independent news site, Inquisiteur.net, was blocked within Guinea for a month and a half from the start of September.

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the violent arrests of 10 journalists covering a peaceful protest on 16 October in the Guinean capital, Conakry, in defence of press freedom and against the two-month-old blocking of the Guinée Matin news website. The charges brought against these journalists must be dropped, RSF says.

“They wanted to disperse us, they used teargas, they roughed up journalists and they smashed equipment before taking us away,” said Sékou Jamal Pendessa, the general secretary of the Guinea Press Professionals Union (SPPG), who organised the peaceful demonstration in the Conakry district of Kaloum. He was one of the three journalists participating in the protest who were also arrested.

The ten other detained journalists were covering the demonstration for media outlets such as Guinée Matin and Hadafo Médias. After being arrested while covering the protest in the morning, they were finally released in the late afternoon.

Several of the journalists were roughed up and beaten when the police broke up the protest, and equipment, including cameras and sound recorders, was damaged. Mariama Bhoye Barry, a reporter for Cavi TV, a privately-owned TV news channel, sustained an injury to her elbow when the police fired teargas grenades.

The 13 journalists were taken to Kaloum police station and subsequently to a court in Kaloum where they were charged with “criminal participation in an illegal gathering” and were ordered to appear in court next week. They were freed after being held illegally for more than seven hours.

“At a meeting with RSF in October 2021, Guinea’s military junta undertook to protect press freedom during the transition and yet it is still struggling to keep its promise. The violence against these journalists and their arrests are unacceptable. We demand the withdrawal of the charges against them and we reiterate our call for everything to be done to unblock access to the Guinée Matin news site, which is currently accessible thanks to RSF’s creation of a mirror site.”

Sadibou Marong, Director of RSF’s sub-Saharan Africa bureau

Four press associations – AGUIPEL, URTELGUI, REMIGUI and UPLG – issued a joint statement deploring a “serious setback for freedom of expression and democracy.” The SPPG, the National Confederation of Guinean Workers (CNTG) and RSF’s local partner, the Media Alliance for Human Rights (AMDH), also issued a joint statement condemning the arrests.

Access to the Guinée Matin website has been blocked since mid-August without any explanation and without any technical problem being detected, according to its general manager. The SPPG blames the authorities, in particular, Ousmane Gaoual Diallo, the minister of posts, telecommunications and digital economy who is also the military junta’s spokesman. When contacted by RSF, Diallo denied being responsible.

As well as creating a mirror site to restore access to Guinée Matin, RSF also created one for Inquisiteur.net, a news and investigative website that was blocked for a month and a half, until the evening of 14 October.

Inquisiteur.net general manager, Mamoudou Babila Keita, told RSF that the Posts and Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ARPT) was not responsible for the blocking. Instead, he blamed Moussa Moïse Sylla, the military junta’s communication and information director, who is a former Inquisiteur.net general manager and shareholder and one of its co-founders. After a month of initiatives aimed at restoring access, the site was finally unblocked after the Network of Internet Media in Guinea (REMIGUI) mediated between Keita and Sylla.

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For the second time in less than two weeks, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has restored access to a blocked news website in Guinea by creating a mirror site. The latest site had been blocked for 12 days as a result of censorship, although the government denies responsibility.

Inquisiteur.net, an independent news and investigative website, first became impossible to access within Guinea on 1 September. Access was briefly recovered on the morning of 5 September, but was blocked again 30 minutes after it posted three articles, one of them questioning the two-year-old military government’s respect for its pledges. Forty-eight hours later, access was only possible by means of a VPN.

The site’s readers have been able to access its content again without a VPN since 12 September thanks to the mirror site created by RSF. The same procedure was used on 30 August to restore access to the Guinée Matin news site, which had been blocked for no apparent reason for the previous two weeks.

“The blocking of news sites without explanation or prior communication is extremely worrying for the media in Guinea. This is the second time in less than two weeks that our organisation has unblocked a site by creating a mirror site. Even if the Guinean authorities deny any involvement in these acts of censorship, they have a duty to do everything possible to identify those responsible and to ensure that the right to information is respected in Guinea.”

Sadibou Marong, Director of RSF’s sub-Saharan Africa bureau

Ousmane Gaoual Diallo, who is the spokesman of the military junta – called the National Committee of Reconciliation and Development (CNRD) – and minister of posts, telecommunications and digital economy, denies any governmental role in the blocking of the two sites. “On the contrary,” he said when contacted by RSF, “if the authorities are asked, we will carry out investigations. I don’t see why we would block these sites.”

Regarded as an “enemy of the Guinea media” since a series of press freedom violations in May, Diallo was also asked about the blocking when interviewed by Espace TV on 12 September. He replied: “When the government decides to block a site, you cannot even access it with a VPN. If you can access it by circumvention methods, it’s because you haven’t been blocked.” He also claimed that he was now “reconciled with the media.”

Inquisiteur.net general manager Mamoudou Babila Keita, who is also an Espace FM radio show host, insisted that the CNRD was responsible for the blocking. “Although there has been no official notification about the reasons for this restriction, we were warned in advance of this closure in the form of threats,” he said. “We are accused of being a media that is critical of the government, especially in our investigative reporting.”

After Inquisiteur.net published an article in July headlined “The CNRD’s state lies about Guinea’s economic performance,” Moussa Moïse Sylla, who is the junta’s communication and information director and a former Inquisiteur.net associate, transmitted a message to Keita via colleagues asking him to take down the article because it had “irritated the transitional president.”

When Keita refused, Sylla requested a meeting in which, according to Keita, he said the government had “the means to shut down the site.” So, in Keita’s view, “this threat was carried out” when the site was blocked.

In the same way, no explanation was given in mid-August for the blocking of the Guinée Matin website, which became the first Guinean site to be unblocked by means of a mirror site created by RSF’s Operation Collateral Freedom two weeks later. Launched in 2015, this operation enables RSF to help news sites to circumvent censorship by creating mirror sites for them on international servers operated by tech giants.

As RSF reported at the time, the junta responded to a big wave of political protests in May by disconnecting social media, restricting access to news sites, jamming radio signals, confiscating equipment and intimidating journalists, in what was the biggest crackdown on press freedom since the military coup in September 2021.

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Guinea marked two years of junta rule on September 5, 2023 on a sombre note as the authorities brutally enforced a ban on all processions. Four people were reportedly killed in clashes with security forces in the capital, Conakry.

The ban particularly targeted a protest march planned by the civilian opposition to demand an early return to civilian rule.

In a statement issued on the eve of the march, the Minister of Local Government reminded the public about “the formal ban on support groups mobilisations and protests in public places” in force since May 2022. The statement “cautioned all persons against violating the order.”

To enforce the ban, a large number of security agents were deployed in the streets, especially in the opposition strongholds in Conakry. Some young people protested the deployment, leading to clashes with the security forces.

The Forces Vives, the umbrella opposition group, said four youngsters aged from 15 to 18 were killed in the clashes. The government is yet to comment on the reported deaths.

On September 1, 2023, (four days to the second anniversary of the 2021 coup), access to the Inquisiteur.net was restricted in the country, in what the management of the news website consider an attack by the government.

Contacted by the MFWA, Mamoudou Keita, journalist and administrator of the online media, revealed that access to the site had been restricted following several acts of intimidation by government officials. Keita refrained from revealing names, citing safety concerns.

“I was called by an executive from the presidency asking me to take down one of my articles,” Keita told MFWA.

Published on July 5 2023, the article challenged the government’s assessment of Guinea’s economic growth during the transition.

“I am deeply affected by what is happening. I had to put most of my staff on leave. We’ve lost some of our contracts because we can no longer publish. For the time being, I’m just publishing on Facebook,” lamented Keita.

Another critical news website, Guineematin.com, has been inaccessible inside Guinea since August 15, 2023, depriving many Guineans of their fundamental right to information. However, access via virtual private networks (VPNs) remains possible.

“They tried to intimidate us, and now they want to prevent us from existing,” Nouhou Baldé, founder of Guinéematin.com, told the MFWA in a telephone interview.

“We thought the problem was technical. But after talking to the webmaster and the host, they told me that there was no technical issue and that I should check with the Internet service providers,” Baldé said.

Apart from the critical analyses and news coverage produced by his medium, the founder of Guinéematin.com says he cannot fathom any other reason for the interruption of his site. He emphasized that Guinéematin.com is an independent and freely operated platform.

The Guinean Online Press Association (AGUIPEL) lodged a complaint regarding the matter to the HAC on August 28, 2023. Following this, Boubacar Yacine Diallo, the president of the HAC, sought the assistance of Mamady Doumbouya, Director of the Autorité de régulation des postes et télécommunications (ARPT), who said investigations were ongoing.

While Guinéematin.com remains accessible through a mirror site, the majority of Guineans remain uneducated about the use of VPNs.

The MFWA strongly condemns all forms of censorship and impediments to press freedom in Guinea, as they constitute flagrant violations of the fundamental right of access to information.

We therefore call on the Guinean authorities to put an end to these restrictions and uphold press freedom and freedom of expression, as they have committed to in their democratic promises.

We also deplore the reported killing of four protesters by the security forces and urge the authorities to investigate the incident in order to ensure that justice is served.

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In response to recurrent acts of repression by the authorities, Guinea’s press associations have declared May 23, 2023, a press-free day. As a result, the independent audiovisual and print media, as well as online newspapers, will not publish on May 23.

Besides the press-free day, the associations will boycott all activities of the government and other transitional bodies until all restrictions are lifted; boycott the Semaine Nationale des Métiers de l’Information et de la Communication (SENAMIC), a weekly government media engagement. The associations will also organise a nationwide protest march on June 1, 2023.

This decision is the result of recent incidents of violations against the press. On May 18, 2023, gendarmes from the Autorité de Régulation des Postes et Télécommunication (Authority for the Regulation of Posts and Telecommunications, ARPT) allegedly assaulted the headquarters of the Afric Vision press group in Conakry, the capital of Guinea.

Mr. Sanou Kerfalla Cissé, the group’s CEO, said the attackers dismantled and took away the transmitters of the group’s two radio stations, Sabari FM and Love FM. The action disabled the two radio stations from operating. Mr. Cissé said that the gendarmes did not give the reasons for the dismantling. When he contacted the ARPT to understand the reasons for this act, he was met with total silence.

This action, which seems to be the last blow to the patience and tolerance of the media, comes a week after major Guinean news websites and social networks were severely restricted. The internet disruption was ordered to frustrate the political pressure group Forces Vives de Guinées (FVG), which called citizens into the streets to protest the transitional government.

“NetBlocks metrics confirm the restriction of Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and other social media platforms in Guinea-Conakry on Wednesday 17 May 2023,” said NetBlocks, the global internet monitoring platform.

Besides these restrictions, when citizens take to the streets to express their discontent, they are met by the army and the police, who are quick to suppress any form of demonstration.

The multiple violations of the rights of citizens and the media, though very often denounced, provoke little or no reaction from the authorities. The perpetrators of these violations enjoy extraordinary freedom in total impunity.

In this context of political unrest and shrinking civic space, the press associations consider the government’s actions hostile to the press and declared its spokesperson, Minister Ousmane Gawal Diallo, an enemy of the press.

In response to these actions, they issued a joint statement on May 18, 2023, in which they condemned “the liberticidal actions taken by the Autorité de Régulation des Postes et Télécommunications against the Guinean media”.

“These actions, which began with the appointment of Mr. Mamady Doumbouya as Director General of the ARPT, initially consisted of slowing down and then stopping access to the main Guinean news sites. These actions have continued since Wednesday, May 17, 2023, with the slowing down or even blocking access to certain social networks including Facebook and WhatsApp and a raid by the gendarmes on the Afric Vision press group to dismantle the transmitters of the Sabari FM and Love FM radios”, the joint statement reads.

The response of press associations is indicative of a shared sense of injustice and concern at the multiple cases of abuse by the Guinean authorities.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is deeply concerned about the repeated actions that undermine civic space, freedom of expression, and press freedom, which are under serious threat in Guinea. We urge the Transitional Government of Guinea to engage in a dialogue with media actors in order to build mutual trust and an enabling environment for the enjoyment of the rights to press freedom and access to information.

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The Town Hall of Kaloum, one of the six municipalities of Guinea’s capital Conakry, has prevented a sit-in planned by the Guinean Union of Press Professionals (Syndicat des Professionnels de la Presse de Guinée, SPPG) to denounce what the SPPG describes as the, “liberticidal attitude of the HAC”, (High Authority for Communication).

The decision of the Town Hall was issued in a statement on September 27, 2022 on grounds that “the administrative measures prohibiting demonstrations, especially those contained in statement Nº0012/CNRD/2022 of May 13, 2022 and Nº0015/CNRD/2022 of May 31, 2022, remain in force.”

The authorities also asked the SPPG “to help maintain a climate of peace and social tranquility to provide a conducive environment for the negotiations initiated by the stakeholders of the transition, hence enabling our country to experience a successful but above all peaceful transition.”

This disallowance comes on the back of a general ban on demonstration decreed by the military junta. It comes after the SPPG and several other media outlets in the country undertook to publicly express their indignation at the recent repressive actions of the HAC on September 28, 2022.

Lately, the regulatory body has been relentless in what appears to be its drive to muzzle press freedom. In a recent decision, the HAC suspended three journalists from the radio station Nostalgie Guinée and their show “Africa 2015”, for a whole month. “Africa 2015” is the main political show of the private radio station.

On September 23, 2022, the HAC released a statement suspending journalists Mamadou Maté Bah, Minkaïlou Barry and Kalil Camara from all radio and television broadcasts from September 23 to October 22, 2022. According to the regulator, they lacked professionalism and “violated the ethics and deontology of the journalist, as well as the code of good conduct of Guinean journalists” during an edition of the political show.

The previous day, “Africa 2015” had hosted Sékou Koundouno, the head of strategy and planning for the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (Front national pour la défense de la constitution, FNDC), an influential political pressure group that was dissolved by the transitional government in August. Koundouno was commenting on the sanctions imposed on Guinea by ECOWAS and urging the transitional government to expedite the process of returning Guinea to constitutional democracy.

>According to the HAC, the FNDC activist had made remarks that could incite popular revolt and uttered public insults during the prime-time programme. It would be recalled that before its dissolution, the FNDC had held several meetings and called for demonstrations to demand a shorter transition period and an agenda for early elections.

The HAC’s decision came as a surprise to the journalists who reported that they had not received any prior notification before the suspension. Kalil Camara, who is also the editor of the online media outlet kalenews.org, told the MFWA that they learned of the suspension on September 23 at about 5:50 p.m. as they were preparing to go on air at 6 p.m.

The suspension of the three journalists comes less than two weeks after the suspension of journalist, N’Faly Guilavogui of the media Groupe Évasion Guinée, for 10 days. Here again, the HAC also accused Guilavogui of violating, “the ethics and deontology of the journalist and the code of good conduct of the Guinean journalist”. The journalist had broadcasted on his media an excerpt from a statement by a youth association in Konia, a community located 62 km north of Conakry.

These recent decisions by the HAC, under the guise of preserving media ethics and deontology, and ensuring peace as well as social tranquility in Guinea, seriously undermine freedom of expression in the country. They further instigate self-censorship and pave way for the suppression of critical and dissenting voices.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is deeply concerned about the wave of sanctions imposed by the HAC on journalists under various pretexts. We urge the HAC to reconsider its disproportionately harsh decision against the three journalists who have done nothing more than providing other citizens with the opportunity to enjoy their rights to expression and information.

We also express our outrage at the denial of the SPPG’s right to demonstrate and denounce the desire to shrink the civic space in Guinea. We would like to remind the HAC of its responsibility to defend the right of citizens to information, and to ensure press freedom and protection.

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The regulator of Guinea’s media space, the High Authority for Communication (HAC), has banned N’Faly Guilavogui, Deputy Director (DGA) of the media Groupe Evasion Guinea, from working as a journalist for 10 days. Mr. Guilavogui was suspended for allowing the broadcast of a statement from a youth association in Konia, a community located 62 kilometers north of Conakry. 

The Deputy Director of the private radio and television group based in Guinea’s capital is suspended from all radio and television broadcasts from September 13 to 23, 2022, according to the HAC’s sanction. The regulator communicated the decision in an official statement on September 12, 2022. 

Specifically, the HAC accused the Deputy Director of violating “the ethics and professional conduct as well as the code of good conduct of Guinean journalists” by broadcasting on his channel, an excerpt of a statement released by the National Association of the Youth of Konia. The group had demanded in the statement that light be shed on the fate of their brothers arrested by the Guinean military authorities. 

Without specifying which part of the statement was incriminating, the HAC said it considered it to be partisan and of a nature to “endanger the social stability of our country”. 

HAC’s mean streak  

In recent times, the HAC is seen to have become very repressive. In the past two months alone, it has imposed a multitude of sanctions on several journalists.  

On August 8, the Publishing Manager of the online outlet, Mosaique.com, Mohamed Bangoura, was subjected to interrogation by the HAC. The latter took issues with the journalist for publishing an article on the disappearance of a truck containing Tramadol, a drug often abused, from the premises of a military garrison.  

Feeling offended by this publication, the military intelligence department of the Armed Forces General Staff invited Mohamed Bangoura to the garrison for questioning over the article. To its credit, the HAC intervened and took over the case to prevent the journalist from going to the military camp.  

At the end of the interrogation, the journalist failed to provide proof of his allegations. He was asked by the HAC to publish an article denying his allegation, and at the same time to appease the military which was determined to have him arrested for defamation.  

On August 19, Ibrahima Lincoln Soumah, the host of the popular program “Mirador” on the private radio station FIM FM, was suspended by the HAC for a period of seven days, from August 22 to 29, 2022. 

The regulatory body accused him of “making statements through which he failed to show social responsibility.  

In an issue of “Mirador”, a program with a considerable audience, Mr. Soumah had stated that most of the protesters killed during a peaceful demonstration had names such as “Diallo, Bah, Sow…”, meaning these victims were of Fula tribal extraction. 

The HAC incriminated these remarks in order to sanction the journalist. However, Mr. Soumah had the support of listeners who said he was “a journalist of the people of Guinea.” 

Shortly after the sanction of Ibrahima Lincoln Soumah, on August 22, another journalist, Habib Marouane Camara, was also invited by the High Authority for Communication. After 3 hours of questioning, the administrator of the news website “Le Révélateur 224” was finally informed that the invitation was as a result of an article he published on his online platform.  

He has not been suspended. However, the HAC asked him to be more professional in the performance of his job. It said in its decision that, “the High Authority for Communication has however noted the regrets expressed by the author who has voluntarily accepted to withdraw the article from his website.” 

This trend of summons to journalists by the HAC for interrogations, sometimes accompanied by sanctions, is perceived as an attempt to muzzle and intimidate journalists, which is an authoritarian derivative of the military dictatorship of the country.  

In this regard, the HAC is perceived as the armed wing of the junta which has been in power since September 5, 2021. The ruling military has positioned itself as a repressive force against all dissenting voices in Guinea. Many civil society actors who oppose the junta’s excesses are currently imprisoned. Journalists who try to denounce the abuses by the military government are summoned by the HAC and subjected to harsh interrogation and punishment. This is the climate in which Guinean journalists operate.  

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is deeply concerned about the state of press freedom in Guinea and urges the Guinean authorities to put an end to the widespread intimidation of critical and dissenting voices.   

In any case, the sanction of journalists and media outlets and the lengthy interrogations of media professionals by the HAC, or any other authority in the country because of their work, are alarming indicators of the shrinking environment of freedom of expression and press freedom. While we understand the ruling junta’s desire to build a better and stronger Guinea, we urge them to steer clear of any path that would lay the foundation for the suppression of basic civil liberties in a democracy that is already struggling to regain its equilibrium.

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